Crap service from Australia post.

Dry_bean.

Apologies to any Australia Post employee's before I start on this short rant, I know it has nothing to do with you.
I bought a small item just before Christmas, total weight just under 100grams including the Aust post padded bag.
Was posted from a town approx 400km north of Sydney at 1.40pm on the 21st of Dec, and was addressed correctly and legibly, I received it about an hour ago.
13 days from the sender to Moonta in SA 200km north of Adelaide is absolute b*ll sh*t, I know it was over the Christmas period, however this level of service is totally unacceptable.
Aust post need to lift their game, the sooner we get a viable alternative the better.  :x

Muscles

I hear you, their speed of service is crap 95% of the time. It still amazes me how parcels can get here from overseas in a few days and yet it can take 2 weeks to send interstate from within Aus. I try to use couriers where possible or if I have to use Aus Post I send or pay for Express - guess that is what they want us to do anyway....

mycuppa

The service has dropped considerably in the last 12 months, ever since the new MD (ex NAB Bank) took over and decided to "shake things up". The problems we experienced in December with slow transit are beyond comprehension - the only reason is pure and simple cost-cutting - insufficient labor across the whole logistics chain. We send anywhere up to 100 parcels a day and you can imagine how much grief I get. I have to deal with it personally as you can't expect staff to put up with it. Friday 31st took the cake for crappy situations - spent the whole day getting so many parcels ready, loaded them into the van, raced around to lodge and they were closed. I could have killed someone. Making matters worse is that customers just don't accept that the nation's logistics providers (AusPost and all other couriers) basically stop for 10+ days. This morning I've taken 20 calls from people upset at not having parcels delivered on the first real day of business. Reality is there is no viable alternative at the moment. Auspost have the reach. Couriers run away from residential deliveries as they have a 50% chance of being unable to secure a signature on receipt, adding to their costs and many freighters have forwarders and 3rd parties that make it very difficult to track items. The other issue is Express is downright dangerous - I've still got $5K in claims disputed from damaged parcels. How can packs of coffee have spear holes in them ? Attempting to make claims on AusPost is harder than landing a rocket on the moon. There is a market and real opportunity for residential parcel deliveries. It was reported in The Age in December AusPost were processing an extra 100,000 parcels per day compared to same time last year - a result of the online shopping growth or just a convenient smoke screen to hide the fact they reduce their staffing levels.

admin

surely the other thing [in addition to crap service] has got to be price? I've had to send something back [to Europe] that was sent mistakenly from an online purchase... postage cost from Denmark [express postage] $75 and it took 4 days; express return to Denmark via Austpost $150 and it took a 8-9 days - ie twice the cost for half the service!! A ::)

Dry_bean.

on 1325563918:

surely the other thing [in addition to crap service] has got to be price? I've had to send something back [to Europe] that was sent mistakenly from an online purchase... postage cost from Denmark [express postage] $75 and it took 4 days; express return to Denmark via Austpost $150 and it took a 8-9 days - ie twice the cost for half the service!! A ::)

Crikey, that's expensive, and slow from our end to Denmark.

littleroundman

The myth of Australia Posts' good service record was busted when overseas suppliers began using automatic tracking on their parcels. Now we can see almost to the minute where the holdups are occurring. My last example: 7 days from Wisconsin to Perth Airport, 45 minutes to clear customs 8 days to cover the 17 km from the airport to my door. (and NO, that wasn't over the Christmas period)

RichardM

I had a parcel shipped from Springwood NSW in a satchel. Left on Tuesday morning. Still not here  >:(

Dry_bean.

on 1325931791:

I had a parcel shipped from Springwood NSW in a satchel. Left on Tuesday morning. Still not here  >:(

Indefensible. :head:

hiphipharar

http://www.smh.com.au/small-business/trends/christmas-online-rush-a-learning-process-aus-post-20120110-1psee.html I ordered something from Amazon (US) on Jan 5. It was dispatched the same day and I received it yesterday; less than 5 days from order to delivery. Amazon uses DHL

Dry_bean.

on 1326162469:

http://www.smh.com.au/small-business/trends/christmas-online-rush-a-learning-process-aus-post-20120110-1psee.html I ordered something from Amazon (US) on Jan 5. It was dispatched the same day and I received it yesterday; less than 5 days from order to delivery. Amazon uses DHL

Generally speaking service from the US is far better than that provided by Aust post, and your able to track items every step of the way.

RichardM

Ok, Australia post have redeemed themselves. Standard post Toowoomba > Sunshine coast - Overnight. Toowoomba > Newcastle - 48 hours.

Muscles

Hardly a redemption. They loose heaps (and then auction them off) and are late more often than not. Will take a lot more for them to redeem themselves in my mind. It's no longer their core business anyway so I don't think really give a rats... EDIT: Forgot to add, I am glad however that it worked out for you and SS!

mycuppa

They copped an absolute caning in the press about slow parcel transit times over Xmas. Then of course, they tried the good old PR deflection technique blaming online retailers of having insufficient stock to fulfill customer orders - all intended to take the heat away from them. Reality was that since the start of Dec 2011, they hit a massive wall and could not cope. The worse bottlenecks remain in SE QLD. Whilst I love that part of the world, I get seriously worried every time we receive a new order as I know we will endure bottleneck conditions once the parcels hit the QLD border. Can you believe it can regularly take a whole 7 days to get a parcel from Melb to Brisbane CBD, yet IPEC can regularly get my boxes from QLD to Melbourne in 1 or 2 days ?

Koffee_Kosmo

They are short of manpower Its as simple as that Letters delivered here at home were done in the afternoon approx 4pm and sometimes a postmen had not come at all So my summation is that one postmen is doing the work of 2 or more KK